


The Second Rule of Comedy

by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Season/Series 03, Yes I Wrote Another One Stop Judging Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22514020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/pseuds/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels
Summary: The first rule of comedy is hotly debated. The second rule of comedy is pretty universal. Lenny and Midge know how to employ it.
Relationships: Lenny Bruce (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)/Miriam "Midge" Maisel
Comments: 27
Kudos: 275
Collections: Numerous OTPS Infinite Fandoms





	The Second Rule of Comedy

“This is a bad idea,” Midge informs him as they crash into the hotel room, already making out.

“We talked about this.” Lenny’s a bit busy finding the soft spot behind her ear a fascinating place to explore with his tongue.

“I meant—against the wall—we’re not twenty anymore.”

“And thank fuck for it, you would not have liked me at twenty.”

“Who says I like you now?” Midge yanks at his tie, rips it off, and then starts to work on his shirt.

“I hate to be the one to tell you…” Lenny manages to get his hands under her skirts and she squeaks as his fingers rub up between her legs, against her clit.

“Just because you make an excellent sex toy doesn’t mean I like you.”

“Oh, wow, a toy? Is that all I am? I feel used, ma’am, dirty and used… cast aside…” He pouts at her and Midge would roll her eyes, but the fact that she’s laughing kind of ruins that.

This wasn’t supposed, really, to be a continuing thing. But they’ve started performing together, with Midge as Lenny’s opening act, to get her reputation back (or rather to keep it in from being threatened) after Shy dropped her, and her presence tends to smooth the way for Lenny, too, they’ve found. People like her. And she might be ballsy and blue as the rest of them, but she’s got class (or so Lenny says). She’s his spoonful of sugar, helping Lenny’s medicine go down smooth for the audience.

And, well, when you’re coming off the high of performing a really good gig, a gig that you know is good, a gig that had everyone rolling in the aisles… who knew it could make you so damn horny?

Midge has been finding out.

“I wouldn’t have known what the fuck to do with you when I was twenty,” Lenny admits, yanking aside her underwear and getting his fingers inside of her. “I would’ve—I never would’ve been good enough for you. You were dynamite.”

Joel hadn’t been good enough for her either, but she hadn’t realized it at the time. “I was stupid, I would’ve dated you anyway.”

“Well now I’m just sad we didn’t get to take advantage of a twenty-year-old’s recovery time.”

She pats his head. “Aww, it’s okay old man, I think the wrinkles make you look distinguished.”

Lenny twists his fingers and she cries out, feeling like she’s been electrocuted in a very, very good way. He gets an unbearably smug look on his face. “You were saying?”

She moans as he adds a third finger. Lenny tuts her. “Is this how you deal with hecklers?”

“I’m much nicer to hecklers.”

“You’re not nice to anyone.” Lenny noses along her neck and presses a deceptively soft kiss there, one that makes her vision blur. “It’s why I like you.”

“If only everyone knew how sweet you are,” she teases, but it comes out breathy and perhaps a bit more serious than she’d intended, as she hooks her leg around his waist and her hand slides down into his pants.

“Mm, now now, I don’t let just anyone see my soft side.” Lenny’s still kissing her neck, and he knows how that makes her melt into a puddle, dammit. “That’s just for you.”

They’re an absolute train wreck waiting to happen. Lenny’s always traveling, he's unpredictable, he drinks too much, he does the kind of drugs even she won’t touch, he can’t sleep most nights and he’s got alimony and lawyers to pay. She’s got kids, a twice-ex-husband, no place to live and her parents are both giving new meaning to the term ‘midlife crisis’.

But also… he gets her, he _gets_ her, he gets _her_ , and she doesn’t need him to provide for her, doesn’t need him to be a father to her kids (Joel, if nothing else, is good at that). He’s her mentor, he’s her guardian angel, he’s a smartass and a bit of a jackass and unexpectedly soft and pulls her out of her bad moods and she suspects that if she asked him to swim across the Atlantic Ocean he’d drown himself doing his damndest to succeed.

It slows down a little. Lenny keeps kissing her neck, and she runs one hand up and around his back, under his shirt, as they stroke each other, her hand around his cock and his fingers inside of her, almost but not quite in tandem.

“I think…” She bites her lip as Lenny slides his fingers out and moves her wrist away, spreads her legs, hoists her up. “I think it would’ve been the other way around, if we’d met back then. I wouldn’t have appreciated you.”

“Oh?”

She’d still wanted the picture-perfect life back then, had still wanted the path that society had laid out for her, finding the right man and being the perfect wife.

Midge grins. “Yeah. I wasn’t nearly as good at blowjobs back then.”

“You are a menace.” Lenny slides into her and his head falls against her shoulder for a second as they both shake, adjusting to it. “I’m gonna have to spank you if you keep saying things like that.”

“Is that a promise?” She wiggles, as much as she can in this position. “If you say things like that and don’t follow through it’s called being a tease.”

“The woman wears strapless dresses and talks about her breasts on stage and she calls me a tease,” Lenny mutters, as if he’s got an imaginary audience listening in. “Can you believe this shit?”

“Aww, you know you can always wear a strapless dress on stage too. I’ll help you pick one out.”

“Not for love or money,” Lenny vows, and then he starts fucking her properly.

Oh, yes, fuck, yes that’s good. She loves their banter, loves how they have the hardest time (ha) stopping, how they can’t seem to ever really shut up. But she also loves these rare moments of silence, moments where it’s just the two of them breathing, gasping, the slick slap of skin against skin, and there’s not a joke in the world.

_I can’t think of anything funny to say._

_It’s nice, isn’t it?_

Everyone else gets Lenny’s humor. All right, so ‘get’ is a relative term. They receive it, but whether or not they actually understand it can be up for debate. She’s better at volleying back than most, perhaps better than anyone, and that’s something special about the two of them. But still—everyone knows Lenny the funnyman.

She gets to see Lenny be serious.

She gets to see it all drop away and to reduce him to nothing but staring, staring at her like she’s the one thing he can’t make a joke out of, reducing him to nothing but simply existing in the moment, being who he is, whoever that might be.

He shifts inside her, changing the angle, until he gets the one that makes her give a soft, strangled cry into his mouth. “Yeah, that’s it.” She can feel him smile. “I never quit ‘til my audience is satisfied.”

“Mm, I thought you were supposed to always leave them wanting more?”

“Seeing how we keep doing this, I’d say you want more.”

Yes, she does, she _does_. She got a taste of comedy and a taste of him and she hasn’t been satisfied yet, she still wants more of both.

She has a suspicion she’s always going to feel that way.

Silence falls again and Lenny buries his face in her neck, kisses her still, and she rakes her hand through his hair, against his shoulder, feels the sparks start up in her toes until they’re curling and she gives a hoarse cry, gets that oh-so-satisfying jolt inside of her as he spills over.

“My back is going to ache tomorrow,” Lenny grumbles, but he doesn’t make any effort to move.

“I told you, not the wall, use the bed, but oh no, someone had to pretend we were in college…”

“You got a very nice orgasm out of it so I don’t see why you’re complaining.” His tongue flicks against her pulse point.

“I’m turning this into a routine.” Midge clears her throat. “My lover threw his back out fucking me against the wall, which you’d think would be bad enough on its own, but now it means I have to be on top for the next month, and gentlemen, you’ll notice the women in the room are _not_ laughing about it.”

Lenny snorts. “I have not thrown out my back.” To prove it to her, he pulls away from the wall but wraps his arms around her, walking (a bit clumsily, it is true) over to the bed and dumping them both onto it.

Joel would’ve told her not to put it into a routine. Nine out of ten men, she suspects, would’ve done the same. But not Lenny. He doesn’t care.

“Lover makes us sound so sophisticated,” he muses instead.

“Well I can’t say boyfriend, we just spent this whole time talking about how we weren’t twenty anymore.”

“Boyfriend isn’t a word exclusively for twenty-year-olds.”

“Would you prefer boyfriend then?”

“We’re not sophisticated enough for ‘lover’.” Lenny pauses. “Well, you are, I’m not.”

“I could always call you my favorite prostitute.”

“Perfect.” Lenny clears his throat. “So my favorite prostitute threw his back out fucking me against the wall yesterday, because he’s a man so obviously he has to always be right and prove his point.”

She grins at him. “If you want boyfriend, that works too. My boyfriend.”

Lenny stops playing to his imaginary crowd and looks at her. He looks very young right now, in the dark two a.m. lighting, his hair undone by her fingers, a lazy smile on his face. He looks like he could almost be twenty.

“I’d like that,” he tells her, no jokes, and Midge knows this next routine is going to be fantastic.

**Author's Note:**

> The second rule of comedy is to know when to stop telling jokes and leave the stage.


End file.
